This was a non-stop action thriller that kept me both engrossed in the story and on the edge of my seat for the entirety of the book. When I wasn't reading I was trying to find ways to sneak in time to get back to it.

Isolated in the middle of the woods during a snowstorm vacationers are forced to take refuge in a remote cabin. Unable to call for help they are brutally murdered and nobody can figure out who the murderer is. I would classify this book as a horror suspense book. There was a lot of gore but it didn't detract from the book in my opinion.

Fantastic, fast paced, frantic locked room thriller with just the right amount of horror! Christa is looking forward to a trip in the Rocky Mountains with her boyfriend and a small tour group. But when a sudden storm hits, the group has to abandon their bus and come across a cabin in the woods. Stuck with no food, no lights, no heat and nowhere to run, they begin to die one by one. Is it one of them? Is someone watching them? Christa was instantly likeable and I found myself rooting for her while also feeling the tension build with the other characters.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Poisened Pen Press for the ARC.

A young lady still reeling over her part in a tragic car accident is invited by her boyfriend on a romantic winter adventure to a country lodge. Unforeseen circumstances have her and her boyfriend separated from the group and trying to survive the elements. She is separated from her boyfriend during a winter a storm when she is rescued by some of the travelers she was with. Reunited with travel companions they meet a terrible fate one by one. She realizes one of the group must be a killer. This book was very suspenseful keeping me on the edge of my seat until the final page.

Christa and her beau join a tour group traveling to a lodge in the Rocky Mountains near where Kiernan grew up as he is eager to show her his beloved mountains. Still haunted by a traffic accident where a young man died Christa is anxious and uncertain. When a sudden blizzard blocks the road they are forced to take shelter in an abandoned cabin. Then Kiernan disappears and the next morning their tour guide is found decapitated. Isolated with eight strangers one of whom is a killer Christa struggles to find answers as well as survive. This author has become well known in the genre and with good reason. In this entry she puts a new spin on the "ten little indians" trope adding more suspense with each page. Each character is well defined and I never knew who to suspect or trust. Christa begins as a neurotic weak character but strengthens under threat. Deft descriptive prose makes the frigid weather and rugged terrain vivid in the reader's imagination. Christa finally discovers what connects these eight strangers share and it is a bombshell. The thrilling twist in the concluding chapters caught me unprepared. Wowzer! It has been a while since a novel has engrossed me as this one did. Trigger warning...contains graphic descriptions and gory scenes. I recommend this thriller to anyone looking for an edge of the seat page turner.

Dead of Winter is a harrowing tale of a tour bus of strangers heading to a remote lodge in the Rocky Mountains during a blizzard. They quickly become stranded and must work together to survive in a rustic cabin with no electricity. Unfortunately, they must also contend with a murderer who is killing them one by one. Christa has some past trauma and is anxious about this getaway but her supportive boyfriend Kiernan eases her worries. However, Kiernan gets separated when they venture off the bus during a stop to deal with a felled tree blocking the road. Krista is determined to find him no matter how dangerous and risky the search will become. Will she become the next victim before she can uncover the truth of the ghastly murders and disappearance of her boyfriend?

What I liked about this book:
-loved the locked room concept of being stuck in a rustic cabin with strangers in a wintery storm, in total isolation with no cell service, lighting or electricity and a murderer in the midst
-it had Agatha Christie vibes of ‘And Then There Were None’
-great pacing and writing style added to the sense of dread and doom
- the isolated lodge and an axe wielding murderer was an homage to Stephen King’s The Shining
-the twists and turns along with the red herrings throughout the book
- the ending-wow! I love how it all connected and although I had predicted the murderer I was unsure of the motivation until it was revealed

What I disliked about this book:
-absolutely nothing! I loved this book!

My rating 5 out of 5

My final takeaway from this book: I highly recommend this action packed book for fans of locked room mysteries coupled with a little bit of gore. It is a great book of survival and trying to outwit and unmask a murderer. It keeps the reader on the edge of their seat and guessing until the end. This is a great summer read to escape the heat with a cold winter's tale. Darcy Coates is a master of suspense sprinkled with her trademark horror.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this eARC.

A locked room mystery that mostly takes place in an unlocked cabin. In the mountains. In winter. During a blizzard. A tour bus gets stopped by a fallen tree in the way to a lodge. Murders begin to happen. That’s all I’m saying.

If you like constant cold, fear, murder, and dread…this is for you!

With thrillers, it’s best to not know much before going in yet with Dead of Winter, the plot seems to unfold very quickly from the beginning. We follow Christa who is set to go on vacation at a snowy lodge with her boyfriend and everything seems great until a snowstorm hits, leaving everyone trapped away from the lodge.

From there, things start to pick up with Christa and Kiernan getting lost, Christa not remembering what went down and everyone in the group being suspicious. Honestly, I don’t want to talk too much about the plot but I will say that Dead of Winter is such a thrilling read from the very first page.

Within the first three chapters, Darcy Coates had me sucked in and I wanted to see what happened with these characters, their stories, and how everything was connected. As this was my first Darcy Coates, I really enjoyed her writing and felt like the way the story was plotted was amazing. She kept me engaged for the majority of the story which I loved.

Modeled after Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, you hold your breath, not knowing what will happen or who will be next. As this is a thriller, I don’t want to give away any twists or turns but I was pleasantly surprised with who the culprit was and how everything was connected.

I’m not normally a thriller reader, so this criticism might be completely off-the-wall but I do feel like there were a few too many red herrings. Then again, that might be the fun of the story or something this author has done in previous works. Either way, it sort of felt like whiplash toward the end of Dead of Winter.

All in all, if you’re looking for a fun and engaging thriller, then Dead of Winter won’t let you down. If anything, this makes me want to go back and read more of Darcy Coates’ massive backlist as she’s such a huge fixture in the horror/thriller genre.

Good Darcy Coates horror book. I felt like I was right there with the characters in the cold. Suspenseful and mysterious. Thank you for allowing me to read the story.

This book was hard to put down from the get-go. Once I started, I didn't want to stop until it was finished. A true nail-bitter thriller, with enough mystery to make you question the things going bump in the dark around you.

Christa is anxious about the winter trip but is encouraged by her boyfriend, Kiernan, to enjoy the adventure. Along with 8 other travelers, they are on their way to a remote lodge in the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter. All have reasons to be on this trip, and when one by one they are killed, it’s apparent one reason is murder. This was a fast paced murder adventure that keeps the reader engaged and guessing to the end.

I did like this somewhat. I am used to Darcy Coates' ghost stories and this was a little too slasher for me. Given the ending, the point of the book was to be a slasher, not a thriller. I didn't like the ending. It was like she got bored and decided to end it where she was. Thus the proliferation of bodies near the end. Not great but I do love her writing. I also appreciated that the main character, though young, isn't a dipshit.

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates is the story of a deadly winter vacation. A private getaway in the Rocky Mountains leads a group to question why they are there and how they are connected. One of them has a motive.

Christa and her partner are going on their first major trip together. They don't even make it to the cabin. Well, they eventually do.

The bus that's supposed to get the tourists to the cabin gets stuck in a snowstorm because of a felled tree. Two people get lost.

The others get to safety by finding a vacant cabin. That's when the murders start.

Who is targeting this random group, and why?

The answer is August eighth.

I enjoyed reading the story. It's a fun thriller that's great for summer or for anyone looking for an easy read. I hardly doubt that the reader will guess the ending.

Get lost in this thriller!

Christa and a tour group head into the Rocky Mountains for a week at a cabin in the woods. They quickly encounter a tree in the road and a snowstorm leaving Christa separated from her boyfriend and with the group in an old hunting cabin. 9 strangers quickly learn that one of them is a killer.

This book gave me nightmares, but I still enjoyed it and read it very quickly. It is not for the faint of heart and has a lot of gore! Although I did guess the killer, there were still a lot of unexpected twists leading up to it!

Thank you netgalley for this ARC.

A solid thriller, surprisingly fun to read in the summer heat.
Thanks for the opportunity to read and review!

Dead of Winter follows a group of travelers stranded in a storm in the Rocky Mountains. Soon their misfortune turns to horror as they begin dying gruesome deaths.

The red herrings are thick as the situation devolves and the cast of characters stew in their fallibility. The book amps up the suspense and suspicions until the chilling, satisfying end. The gore level was disturbing but not extreme.

Had I known anything about Darcy Coates prior to this, I would have held off starting the book until I had more free time. Instead, I got completely sucked in and sacrificed sleep because I constantly needed to know what would happen next. It may be a tiny bit predictable, but everything about Dead of Winter is entertaining.

This is the best mystery I’ve read so far this year and it’ll be extremely hard for anyone to top it.

Thank you, NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the opportunity to review this advanced reader copy of the book.

Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates is a fact paced thriller/horror that mostly takes place on one snowy vacation as a small bus full of tourists are stranded by a small hunting cabin in the mountains. As they try to find help, they begin getting killed off one by one and the only explanation is that the killer is one of them. But will our main character, Christa, figure it out before it’s too late?

I have read a few books by this author and I always love them more than I think I will. She has a unique writing style that I would describe as “cozy horror” that almost feels like a straight to streaming scary movie but in the best way. And while I feel like this book had a similar general vibe, it was much more gory and thrilling than I was expecting. With extremely short chapters, this book flies by while you are reading it. Christa as the main protagonist doesn’t have a ton of personality but it lends itself well as being easy to relate to her. She is a great example of a self insert character done well.

I really only had two issues with this book. The first being that the cast of characters was just really big right from the start so I had a hard time caring about anyone because I didn’t really know who they were. I was confused a few times about who everyone was. I think this story could have still been the exact same with half the characters but it would have been a lot easier to follow. There was also a point when it felt like the author sort of had to shoehorn in some foreshadowing for the twist at the end and it felt very awkward to me and took me out of the story completely. I’m sure there are some readers that wouldn’t even notice it but it was something that annoyed me a bit.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes locked door mysteries that are fast paced and thrilling with some horror elements. This is a great book to pick up when you just want to fully immerse yourself in reading for a few hours. I would give this a 3.5 star rounded up just because of my few issues but overall, this was a good time.

Dead of Winter is a locked room mystery that takes place in a snowed-in hunting cabin located in the Rockies. When their charter bus is no longer capable of handling the mountain roads, the driver and eight of its passengers make their way to this isolated cabin. Two passengers are missing, having lost their way in the woods. While trying to make it to safety, only one of them makes it to the cabin. Soon, these unlucky souls begin to be murdered; their heads severed and hung from a tree. Can it be one of them, or is there someone—or something else—committing these gruesome slayings?

I like a locked room mystery where it seems the most logical explanation is a supernatural one. Someone is not who they appear to be, and the red herrings begin to pile up. Once you think you have it figured out, you realize you are wrong; and that’s okay. However, this did not happen to me in this book. Sadly, I solved the puzzle too quickly, and there wasn’t much more to make this a thrilling read.

I think that I would have liked the snow and cold weather to be more present; to help build up the claustrophobia and fear. Yes, they were stranded, and in need of heat. But there was a sense of climate inertia: shouldn’t the wind and snow come into the open cabin door, seep through the windows; and when they go out to take care of their bathroom needs, shouldn’t their butts either freeze or get stuck in the snow? Also, how do ten people fit comfortably in a one room cabin?

I am the type of reader that likes to be masterfully manipulated by a writer; to be able to say ‘damn, you tricked me!’ However, although I am a Darcy Coates fan, I was left wanting more.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Poison Pen Press for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was non stop action and tension from start to finish! It was gruesome, gory, and had some scary moments. My suspicions kept jumping around and the mystery definitely held my interest. I love isolated thrillers, especially when the characters start getting picked off one by one! I guessed part of the twist but the motivation was a total surprise. I only wish I had read this during a snow storm lol

Darcy Coates' Dead of Winter is not her typical gothic horror novels. Instead, like with From Below, she is exploring different horror genres -- this time a slasher.

Slasher novels are some of my favorites, and this one is no exception. A group of tourists heading to
mountain retreat find themselves trapped in a small cabin during an intense snow storm. One by one, they are murdered. Is the murderer one of them, or someone hidden by the storm? The claustrophobia and paranoia builds as the story progresses. There are not one but two red herrings, and several twists.

This novel is gory, and may not be suitable for some readers. It is a slasher, after all. There is some spousal emotional abuse that may be upsetting, as well.

Dead of Winter would be great for horror fans who don't mind gore. I'd recommend it to fans of Stephen Graham Jones' slashers. If you've never read a slasher novel, but love slasher movies, check it out!

I was provided an ARC through netgalley for an open and honest review.